//Author Note: Rotten Æther | Scribble Hub//

 

She prowls, walking with a predatory step that I’ve not recognised in any other, yet, there’s also a hint of something else. A cautiousness to her, as if she is a small rabbit pretending to be a bear so that the wolves won’t eat her. She’s on edge, but pretending to be at ease, ready with her weapons but just as ready to flee, always looking at the windows and the path back just in case she has to make a quick escape.

The others are what I’d expect of mercenaries, they watch each other’s backs and observe me closely for the threat that I pose. They’re just as ready to fight or flee, but there’s a qualitative difference between Syr and the rest of them. No matter how she might act as part of their group, it’s clear that she still stands apart from it.

Perhaps there’s a way to lure her apart from them, take her in as a personal knight in my service. If what I know of her is right, then it would certainly be to my benefit to keep her close as a weapon against Adlramodore and others of my kin.

The sight of her alone is enough to make my fangs itch with wanting. What would her blood taste like? Would it be sweet with terror? She certainly tastes anxious even from here. It is only a shame that I can’t think of any proper way to phrase the request that wouldn’t sound like a distasteful demand or threat.

‘Please miss, may I have some blood?’ Simply doesn’t roll off the tongue particularly well.

Though, even without any such outrageous requests, I’ve already done enough to focus her attention onto me. The only moments she’s not looking at potential escapes, she’s looking me up and down. Unlike a proper noble, she has no subtly about it, and it’s impossible to notice where her gaze lingers.

We head into the lounge where I’ve had some silencing enchantments readied. Father had his share of them, but I was never informed of them and it’s taken some time to locate them and learn their proper use.

A warm fire is burning in the hearth, and while the flames are not the most comfortable thing for me here, it seems an appropriate message. I am not afraid of fire, though I might be vulnerable. These mercenaries are a threat to me, they could kill me as easily as if I were to throw myself in the flames, yet I will welcome them into my home just as I do with these dangerous flames.

Taking a chair by the fireside I invite the others to sit while my head maid pours us some tea. The mercenaries keep a distance from me for the most part, though Syr is different. She sits a little closer, making a show out of her weapons, ostensibly so that she can sit comfortably but she ensures that I can see every blade clearly as she does so. There is no mistaking the silent threat in her actions. I must tread carefully with her.

The mage might have powerful flames, but she still uses verbal casting which would grant me time to act or escape. If Syr were to draw her swords or use her club to beat me over the head, I do not imagine that I would have it easy trying to survive her. If it is true what necromancers can do to the undead, then I’m sure she wouldn’t even need to go so far.

“Thank you for accepting my invitation, there is much that I wanted to call you here for, but I’m sure that you’d like me to assuage your concerns before all else. I am a vampire, and I know that Syr here is a necromancer. I hope that you find no issue with the former and I can already confirm with you that I have no problem with the latter,” I turn my gaze to the fire as I explain this, allowing them the freedom to express their concerns with each other without my attention.

“With this in the open, I hope that it will not be of great issue if I ask you to detail more about your powers?” I turn to look at Syr, she’s watching me closely, leaning toward me even. “I do hope that I might beg a favour from you at some point, but I would like to know what it is that I can ask of you.”

“Well, you know the dangerous part,” Syr shrugs, pulling her feet up onto the lounge, with not a care at all for the impropriety. “If anyone is going to hate me for something, it’s the necromancy part.”

The others on her team show their own thoughts on that with expressions twisted by their contradicting emotions on the topic. Necromancy is a most hated magic, but I suppose that this young elf has managed to earn their trust, respect, and sympathies regardless of the challenge that the magic brings to their relationships. It is also likely for the separation between them.

“I first used my magic when I was little,” Syr lifts her hand up and down until she’s happy. “Around this tall. I don’t really know how many years that was since everything went bad for a while there and I don’t remember everything very well, not from when I was a baby, anyway.

“I used magic to bring a bird back from the dead, but mother hated it. Maybe she even hated me for it a bit, too, now that I think of it. I was just like the villainous undead wolven, and the ancient legendary villains and all that stuff. Anyway, I just wanted the bird to move again, to live again, and then something in the æther twisted itself around into necromantic magics. Someone I was talking to was saying something about the god of magic, or something, but it’s not like anyone actually talked to me about it. The magic just made itself happen, then I just copied it.”

She’s getting more and more worked up as she talks, her eyes looking right past the rest of us as she speaks of her experiences, describing her tale more to herself than to any of us here. She quiets down, taking a teacup and cradling it close, used more for the warm comfort of having it in her hand than as a drink.

“Everyone died, turned to ash. All things do,” she shakes her head. “Bandits came and killed everyone. Someone was covering it up, making sure that the mercenaries and the guards didn’t come to help. The bandits stayed there for a long time, and were still there when I came back to kill them all.”

“You mean to say that it is so lawless that bandits seized a town and were actively protected by local nobility?”

“The guild, too,” Theo, the leader of their little band speaks up. “Cildr was a small village, out of the way and easy to ignore. With the nobles and the guild covering it up… For most of that time, the bandits were peaceful enough that the cover-up worked. Eventually, they started stealing things and kidnapping people, but that was probably against whatever orders they had.”

“Bandits in name and act, but agents of some cruel power?” I ask, and he nods.

“I killed them all,” Syr says, still gripping her teacup tighter without even taking a sip.

As I shuffle in my seat, I find my hand reaching out for her on instinct. When my little brother got into fights, sometimes it would be up to me to comfort him… I shouldn’t be thinking about him. Or father, or my family at all.

“These guys found me, took me in, and helped me to learn how to survive in the world as a merc. I’ve been with them since…” There is much that she’s not saying, but it seems the sort of thing that must be slowly teased from a person through a thousand conversations.

The complex feelings that surround her bring my own frozen flesh to life with sympathies. A wanting to share the same feelings and pains that I cannot be allowed to entertain for myself, I want to grieve for my lost family. I want to cry and weep and be weak.

Only, I am no longer a person who can do those things, with genuine emotion.

I refuse to let a monster, born from the death of their daughter make a mockery out of their deaths by imitating mourning that cannot be true. I will not let such mockery be made real.

“Thank you,” I say to Syr, swallowing down the faux emotions stirring inside me. “Honestly, I didn’t expect you to tell me everything and it’s… it’s refreshing to be trusted so easily.”

Have I ever known someone willing to describe themselves with such eager honesty? Even those who I most trust remain guarded to some measure of degree, but not her. Jealousy, a lie like all other emotions, rises inside me at that simple honesty.

“You already know the dangerous parts anyway,” she says, taking her first sip of tea. From her expression, it is easy to tell that she isn’t too fond of the taste. Perhaps I should have had something sweeter prepared.

“Now your turn,” she says, her eyes returning to focus on me. There is a heavy weight to her simple words, and while there is no threat there is a certain expectation laid out before me. She has openly shared her own story, wounds and all, and for me to abridge my own too seriously would be a significant offence.

I’ve spoken honestly with my servants already, it is strangely liberating to share what must remain secret, to break the unspoken rules of my kind. Rules that I never agreed to.

So, I speak.

My family, their deaths, and my own. The birth of the monster that I am, and what my goals have been since then. My own twisted perceptions of reality and the lies that have misguided me through it all, and the guiding moral principles that remain unchanged even when I correct the lies that have turned me around, seeking justice in all the wrong places.

They are most interested in my vampirism, my weaknesses and strengths. I hold back nothing so that the secrets might be spread among those who share my enemies, I have requests that must be made of the necromancer, and these weaknesses must be understood if I am to have a chance of surviving the worst should my plans fail me further.

My story is not one that can be digested in the matter of minutes that our short meeting provides, but silence can only rest easy over a group as uncomfortable as us before someone must break it.

“What do nobles do for fun?” Syr asks, twisting around in the fine leather chair, treating it as casually as a mercenary might treat a wooden stump. She smiles so easily, even with the story that she told me and the weight of my own history still clinging to the walls around us, whispering of the horrors that might never be erased.

Syr doesn’t seem to notice, or perhaps she simply doesn’t care.

“I’m afraid I don’t understand the purpose of your question,” I reply lightly. I don’t quite know what to make of her, but the lack of seriousness only makes me question whether she’s not simply acting out of impulse, though even then it makes little sense to me.

She reaches out a hand, grabbing mine with no concern for the improper nature of the act. Her grip is tight, and her hand warm. I’m sure that my own cold flesh must be at least uncomfortable, like griping freezing ice, but none of that comes through her expression which has been so painfully honest so far that I must believe it true.

 She’s saying something, but my busy mind couldn’t focus on the details.

“So, what do nobles do for fun?”

The question tastes almost like an invitation, but that must be in my own mind. What interest would she have in me after hearing of my villainous past? No, it must be something else.

“Listen to music from their servants, tea parties with other nobles, and other events that include dancing and music, though it is as much duty as ‘fun’,” she says, shaking her head at something I don’t understand. “I personally have an affection for books. I used to. What is this to do with vampires and necromancers?”

“I just wanted to know,” she replies, bouncing in her seat and still gripping my hand. Is this elvish flirtation? I do know that elves are not overly fond of being touched, unless that too is a lie. Nobles certainly have no custom of familiarity such as this, so I do not understand how to read this action.

“I mean even necromancers and vampires have to have fun, right?”

There is no question.

She must be flirting with me. That line alone is burdened by such innuendo that I’m sure that I would blush if I still had the blood to colour my cheeks. That she would be so forward in the sight of company is… she is a monster.

“Villains would usually only find such enjoyment from the suffering of others, unless you are wanting to invite me on a hunt, I do not fully understand your intentions,” I reply carefully. Sometimes it is better to pretend ignorance to avoid the shame of addressing such topics too directly.

One of the mercenaries, the young male, is chuckling to himself up the back of the room. It is all that I can do to keep from glaring at him directly, I pull at the shadows by his feet to whip at the back of his legs, but he only laughs the louder, seeing clean through my, admittedly childish, reaction. He mouths encouraging words to Syr, completely without care that I can read his lips just as easily.

“Could we return to the topic at hand,” Theo says, not reacting as the jester behind him smacks him for it. “What have you called us here for? What do you want from Syr?”

“Yes, we should return to the topic,” I say, nodding my appreciation to their leader. He has been polite even if he has too little control over the others. “I have mentioned that a vampire is a slave to their master, that their own will is ineffective at rebelling against ill-natured orders. I hope to escape this city before I am in a situation to learn whether this is entirely true.”

“What does that have to do with me?” Syr asks, still holding my hand. What possesses a person to act so brazenly?

“There is a possible exception to this rule, or at least Pharisa, the vampire that your mage helped me to overcome, seemed convinced such was the case,” I explain. “A necromancer is a master over all that is dead, vampires are no exception.

“If I am to have someone give me orders, then I would rather place my trust in a rogue necromancer than in the man who killed me and my family.”

 

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

 

If you enjoy this story, like it, rate it, leave a comment, and share it around!

If you really like it and want more chapters join the Patreon, I need all your support to keep this going.

 www.patreon.com/formlesschimera